FALLS CITY – The Falls City ISD school board held their regular monthly meeting on May 21 and heard a presentation by architect firm Huckabee and Associates regarding construction delivery methods for the new athletic and academic facility construction project.

On May 10 voters approved a bond in the amount of $39.5 million for the purpose of building the new and expanded academic and athletic facilities to be built on new property directly across the street from the current campus on W. Nelson St.

The board reviewed construction delivery methods as part of the construction management coordination and planning that is necessary to the project. The two main construction delivery methods reviewed were sealed bids, in which the district handles it all within the district, or the hiring of a general contractor to handle it.

“After discussion with the board about that, the board decided to go with what is called ‘construction management at-risk.’ What that is, is a delivery method in which you hire a contracting company to do that. We‘re going to do request for qualifications for the construction company and construction management at-risk.”

The CM at-risk is a construction delivery method that has a greater advantage of budget management due to the selected construction manager delivering a project within the specified price ceiling. The construction manager acts as a pre-construction services consultant in the design and development phase, and also as a general contractor during the active construction phase of the project.

No company has been selected yet and district officials will put out bids for the selection soon, after more progress is made on the details of the facility designs.

Also at the meeting the board canvassed the May 10 elections and the Oath of Office was administered to the three board member incumbents who won the at-large re-election. The top three candidates with the most votes won seats.

Trustee incumbents Jerry Jendrusch, Marlin Moczygemba, and Alfie Kowalik retained their seats and were sworn in for another term.

The $39.5 million bond for the building of new academic and athletic facilities was approved by voters with 396 voting for the bond and 183 voting against it, giving a complete total of 579 votes cast.